


who the hell wants to hear me talk about emulsifiers?

by ratbrain



Series: "I'm claiming Jon Sims for the neurodivergents" [1]
Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Comfort, Domestic Fluff, Fluff, Insecurity, Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist Has ADHD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-20
Updated: 2020-11-20
Packaged: 2021-03-10 06:41:20
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,754
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27639022
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ratbrain/pseuds/ratbrain
Summary: Jon had always been painfully aware that at most times, he was physically incapable of shutting up.(aka the I see your "the mechs are Jon Sims college band" AU and I raise you "the mechs are his rpg group that no one fully understands the rules of but he hyperfixates on it and Martin is a complete sweetheart")
Relationships: Martin Blackwood/Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist
Series: "I'm claiming Jon Sims for the neurodivergents" [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2020882
Comments: 26
Kudos: 256





	who the hell wants to hear me talk about emulsifiers?

**Author's Note:**

> enjoy my self projection

Jon had always been painfully aware that at most times, he was physically incapable of shutting up. 

But if you were to ask him he’d say he dealt with it pretty well, finding a career that ended up that required him to talk about things sometimes for hours on end. Quite a step up from a childhood of endless requests to be quiet, often from either his grandmother or teachers (not his fault he apparently knew more about the Titanic at age 9 than she did at age 32, but whatever). 

What was even worse was that most people didn’t actually know that he was talkative. Of course this wasn’t unintentional. Over the years Jon had carefully crafted a way of talking to people to ensure that he wouldn’t talk over them or interrupt them when they were talking (because “interrupting is very rude, you have to learn how to let others speak, Jon”) so that they wouldn’t grow annoyed with his antics. This sometimes resulted in curt responses to kind questions, and while that definitely sucked Jon thought it was far better than the alternative. 

The most obvious example of this would be a few months ago. It was a normal day like any other at the institute, and Jon was very wrapped up in a statement concerning a childhood toy that seemed to move on its own accord. He had just finished recording when Martin knocked lightly on the door and stuck his head in. 

“Hey they’ve got this new tea in the breakroom. It’s orange and spice, and I was just about to make some. Would you like any?”

“No. I’m alright.” he said simply, and Martin nodded and walked away. 

Sure, he felt a bit bad about being so blunt in his response. But in all honesty, he was only doing it to save Martin from him. Because he knew if Martin brought him tea it would lead to a discussion, and Jon knew way too much about the production of oranges because there had been that time about three months back where it had for some reason seemed the most interesting thing in the world to him. He must’ve watched hours worth of documentaries, and had even been able to dig up some books online about the subject. And because he was himself that meant he would start rambling and then Martin would try to politely opt out of the conversation and Jon would be too socially inept to realize. So yeah, better to avoid the thing entirely. 

Then there had been the absolute nightmare of Martin’s birthday party. 

It had started out so simply, too. They had all been sitting with their ice cream, and Jon was letting the rest of them carry out the majority of the conversation, when Tim had made some remark about an old science project he’d had to do in middle school that involved making a lava lamp with oil and water. 

“Well if you had an emulsifier they could mix. Lecithin works for oil and water specifically, if I remember correctly.”

“What’s lecithin?” Martin asked, and it was then that Jon realized that he had trapped himself in one of his least favorite social dilemmas. If he answered Martin’s question, he would likely end up ranting and annoying everyone he could consider himself close to. But if he didn’t, then he would be being a total ass by not answering Martin. 

Okay. He was going to answer the question but he was going to make sure he kept it short. He could do that. 

“It’s a  phospholipid molecule, which is actually found in egg yolk. That’s actually not even the only emulsifier in egg yolk, oh right, emulsifier, that’s a thing that basically mixes two liquids together. I don’t think I explained that, but anyway cholesterol is the second one. And what they do is actually really interesting, because they have both a hydrophilic and a hydrophobic end, so basically one end is attracted to the oil and one end is attracted to the water, so when you mix them together it can form an emulsion. Most people don’t even realize how many emulsifiers there are, really. Like mustard is actually an emulsifier, though I wouldn’t recommend using it if you’re mixing oil and water, because that would probably be pretty gross.”

It wasn’t until he finally stopped talking that he realized his mistake.  _ Fuck,  _ he thought, he’d tried so hard to be careful and now they were all probably annoyed at him. But that’s the problem, they were too nice to actually say anything. But he knew they all probably felt it. 

They were all staring at him with a bit of shock in their expression, except for Martin, who looked with more of a sort of...admiration? Jon had never exactly been great at finding words to relate to feelings so that was the best way he could categorize it. 

“Woah boss, why are you working here when you could be like, Bill Nye or something?”

“Who?”

“Oh don’t tell me you haven’t heard of Bill Nye.” Tim said, a wicked grin spreading across his face. 

“I also don’t know who he is.” Martin chimed in. 

Tim looked over at Sashs, “Can you believe this?” he said, “No one here has any taste whatsoever. Hang on-” he began pulling his phone out of his pocket. 

“Tim I don’t think it’s really necessary-”

“Don’t care. None of us are leaving until I can be sure that you’ve seen Bill Nye.”

While Jon may not have been exactly thrilled at the idea of watching a children's show, he was glad for the distraction of the video. He hadn’t messed up too badly this time, but he was definitely going to need to be more careful. 

Of course, that all changed when he and Martin started dating.

Well, to say that it all changed then is a bit of an overstatement. It didn’t entirely change right then and there and everything was solved and Jon never felt insecure again. That would just be unrealistic. But it did get far, far better. 

Most of that had simply been the fact that Martin was so supportive. Whenever Jon would feel himself starting to ramble and attempt to cut himself off Martin would ask him a question about whatever he'd been talking about and he would just start talking again. And Martin never seemed to be asking these questions for Jon’s sake, as many people had before to try and make him feel better about having such...niche interests. And he wasn't just listening to make Jon happy, he genuinely wanted to know what he had to say. 

They were having dinner at Martin’s flat. Martin had made dinner that night, pasta and meatballs. A bit childish perhaps, but Jon had come to realize that that wasn’t necessarily a bad thing. Besides, Martin was a way better cook than he was willing to give himself credit for. Jon had brought it up once, but when he realized it was because Martin had been looking after his mother from such an early age that he had learned how to do most things on his own he realized it was probably best that the topic was avoided. 

“So I recently found this RPG group online.” Jon began, a sort of testing the waters to how much he could speak about this. He was at least self aware enough to realize when he had a hyperfixation, and those were always very tricky to navigate. 

“You know I never really got into those.” Martin said (he might not be interested, try to keep your discussion to a minimum then). “I had a few friends in high school who really liked all that stuff, and they tried to get me into it but it just wasn’t my thing. I liked the character creation aspect of it though. What’s it about?”

Okay. So he wanted to know more about it. That was always good. “Well it’s space themed, which I’ve always preferred to the more western ones. I like both, but it's just kind of a preference I suppose. Anyways this specific one we’re playing as this band of immortal space pirates. I mean like an actual musical band, not just a close group of people type of band.”

“That’s an interesting choice. So did you make a character and everything?”

“Yeah.”

“Well what are they like?”

“Well I named him Jonny D’Ville. His last name actually used to be Vangelesis, and he was the son of Billy Vangelesis on the planet of New Texas. So Billy Vangelesis was a major gambler, specifically at this bar called One Eyed Jacks. So Jonny gets called in by One Eyed Jack who tells him his father has acquired a lot of debt, and Jonny can repay that debt by killing some people, one of whom is his own father. So he kills his father in this really dramatic climax where his father forgives him as he’s dying. He goes back to One Eyed Jack, who says he can be Jonny’s father now, but Jonny refuses. He says he’s met this doctor and kills One Eyed Jack and burns the place down and runs away with her. The doctor I mean, Doctor Carmilla. She gives him a mechanical heart that makes him immortal.”

“I like that. Where’d you get the idea for that?”

“You know the song house of the rising sun?”

“Yes?”

“There.”

“I see, I like it.”

“I’m sorry.” Jon said suddenly after a few seconds of silence. 

“For what?” Martin asked. 

“I was rambling again.”

“You know I don’t mind right? I like listening to you speak.”

“Yeah it’s just...I don’t know.”

“You listen to my poetry.”

“That’s different!”

“How?”

Jon thought about that for a second, but couldn’t think of a good answer other than “because you’re pretty and smart and I love you and your poetry sounds like Keats but better” which he wasn’t exactly keen on saying. 

“Exactly. Now what about the other players?”

“I think you’re an enabler”

“Ah yes, enabling my boyfriend to talk about the things that he enjoys doing. I should really just be put right to death for that one.”

“I don’t want to annoy you.”

“You won’t.”

“Trust me I will.”

“Try me.”

Jon thought about this for a while. In the end he figured it was at least worth a shot. 

“Okay then. So they have this ship called the Aurora-”

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> Honestly this is probably the most self projecting I have literally ever done, but when there's little to no good ADHD representation in media you just have to do it yourself.   
> I'm planning on doing some other works in this series that involve the RSD/anxiety aspects of ADHD, but I will either write insanely fast or literally never get around to it.


End file.
